


Step To The Beat of My Heart

by KT517



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Marching Band AU, Supernatural AU - Freeform, color guard!dean, coming to terms with sexuality, dean's still in the closet, drum major!castiel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 06:57:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6145324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KT517/pseuds/KT517
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Color guard captain Dean Winchester knows he's good with a flag. He can move easily across the field and make anyone that marches near him look good too. But when the Lawrence High School Marching Band gets a new drum major, Dean's world is flipped upside down.  It's their last year before graduation and Dean still has a lot to learn about himself and what makes him happy. And he's going to do it, one 8-to-5 step at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean hated fundamentals block. Yes, of course he knew that is was absolutely necessary that all the underclassmen figured out how to march together and stop together and all of that boring crap because, after all, a marching band that can’t march is just a band. 

He still couldn’t stand fundamentals block. He didn’t even get to pick up his flag until after lunch when everyone broke off into sectionals. And even then, most of the time was spent doing across the floors and basic flag work to get the rookies accustomed to having a 6 foot metal pole with a rather large piece of fabric in their hands. 

And to top the amazingness of his last first day of band camp off, they were without a drum major. Apparently, Ava’s mom just decided to pack them up and move them to Oklahoma, even after Ava was already awarded the position of drum major. So, for now, their band director, Mr. Crowley was running things. And, by running things, he’s just yelling orders at the leadership team from his chair in the shade while the rest of them bust their ass on the burning asphalt of the parking lot. 

Dean clapped his hands as he called “mark time mark” to signal the 6 color guard members in his squad to start marking time while they waited for his next command. He let them mark time for 8 counts before instructing them to move forward 8 counts. 

“Nice roll step, Kevin. Keep that up. And, Meg, make sure your heel hits the ground on the beat. You guys take a quick 2 minute water break,” He said, looking over at his co-captain, Charlie, who instructed her squad to do the same. Charlie walks over to Dean, who pulls up his shirt to wipe the sweat off the bridge of his nose from underneath his sunglasses. 

“How are yours doing?” Charlie asks, taking a giant gulp from her water bottle. 

Dean shrugs. “About as you would expect for the first day of band camp. Have you heard anything about our drum major situation?”

Charlie was, and pretty much always has been, Dean’s source for gossip involving the band. Dean has no idea how she manages to do it, but it just seems like that spunky little red-head finds out about everyone's business, sometimes even before the people involved really figure it out.

“Well, from what I hear, there’s a kid that’s coming from North Carolina. He was drum major for his junior year but he didn’t even bother auditioning for it his senior year because he knew that his dad was being transferred out here for his job. I think they said that his first day would be tomorrow.”

Dean’s mouth fell open. Where the hell does she find all this shit out?! “Does this mysterious new drum major have a name?”

Charlie shrugs. “Dunno. I kind of overheard something but it was way too weird for it to actually be someone’s name.”

“So you can find out someone’s entire back story, but you can’t find out their name? You’re losing your touch, Bradbury. Is senioritis hitting you early?”

Charlie laughed. “Bitch, I’ve had senioritis since I was a sophomore. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” Charlie winked at him and sauntered off back to her little corner of the parking lot where the rest of her squad were returning from their water break. 

Dean sighed and turned around to the slightly pink faces of his squad. Damn, it’s fucking hot out here. He wiped the sweat off the back of his neck and gave his squad their next instruction. And that’s pretty much how it continued for the next 3 hours until they were released to the holy grail that was the band room with its glorious working A/C for lunch.

Dean found his spot against the wall with his normal group of friends for his oh so nutritious lunch of cold meat lovers pizza that he picked up for him and Sammy last night. As per usual, Charlie scoffed at his lunch choice while Benny, their first trumpet player, patted him on the back with an amused looking face.

“Dean, seriously, you’re gonna get sick being out there in the heat after eating that crap,’ Charlie reprimanded while taking a bite out of her apple.

“Oh, let him live, Charlie. It’s you guys’ last band camp. If Dean wants to make himself sick, so be it,” Benny laughed, picking a slice of pepperoni off of Dean’s other slice of pizza and plopping it in his mouth. 

Dean just shook his head and continued eating his pizza. “Okay, Benny, since Charlie doesn’t know something for once in her life, do you happen to know the name of our new drum major?”

Benny opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted before he could get a word out by Mr. Crowley, who was standing in the middle of the band room with his back towards them, a kid who Dean has never seen before standing beside him.

“Listen up, children!” Crowley’s voice boomed. “This is Castiel Novak. He’s our new drum major. I expect you all to welcome him into this band family as if he’s been here since day one of freshman year band camp. Or don’t. Either way, you still have to listen to him.” 

Crowley stalked off back to his office where he promptly closed his door, leaving the kid - Castiel - standing awkwardly in the middle of the room with everyone staring at him and no one making any sound. Dean felt really bad for the poor kid, but not bad enough to break this incredibly awkward silence.

From what Dean could tell from the backside of Castiel, he was well built. He wore a tank top that showed off his toned shoulders and basketball shorts that nicely displayed his strong calves. His skin was a golden tan and his hair was dark and messy on top of his head. Well, at least the back of him was hot.

Seconds that kind of felt like hours passed before Castiel or anyone else in their 75 member band moved. Castiel cleared his throat, mumbled out a quick “hello” and then awkwardly walked to the far corner of the room where he sat down and began chewing on his thumb nail. Dean wanted to go over and say something but lunch was almost over and he still had a piece of pizza and a bag of potato chips to eat. 

Dean plowed through the rest of his lunch while Charlie and Benny talked quietly about how weird it was that the kid didn’t really say or do anything and how rude of Crowley it was to just leave him standing in the middle of a room full of strangers. 

Dean stood up to go throw his trash away, stretching out his sore back in the process. Lucky for Dean, Castiel was sitting just by the trash can. Maybe he would try to say something. 

Dean put on his best cocky little smirk and sauntered over to the trash can, making sure to sway his hips a little in the process which would surely get him teased by Charlie and Benny at a later time. He dumped his stuff in the trash can and was just getting ready to say something when Crowley came out of his office. 

“Detail, to the ready!” He boomed. Everyone stood up quickly and got into the ready position with their hand in front of their belt buckle and their chins pointed 45 degrees below parallel and their feet spread shoulder width apart. Everyone including Castiel. 

That was the first time that Dean saw the brilliant blue eyes, pink, chapped lips, and hair that was even messier in the front. And that was also the first time that Dean nearly broke the ready position and fell over.

If this is who Dean was going to be taking orders from for the next 3 months, he had absolutely no problem with that.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean held his breath as he continued to look over their band’s new drum major standing in front of him. Goddamn, he was beautiful. If only he would look up so Dean could see those brilliant blue eyes again.

Why won’t he look up?

Crowley cleared his throat and put a hand on the back of Dean’s neck. “Now, Dean, I would have thought that by now that you would know where your eyes were supposed to be looking when you’re in the ready position. Or has our new drum major caught your eye?”

Dean felt his ears turn bright red and he casted his eyes down to their proper place when you’re at the ready. Dean wished with everything in him that he could smart off to his pompous band director, but Crowley did just call him out for not being in the proper position. For what it’s worth, as much as Dean can’t stand the guy sometimes, he knows that Crowley expects excellence and that’s part of what makes their band program so great on the field. 

“Let’s go ahead and move into our sectional areas. Your room assignments are on the board. Guard, you will be in the gym, obviously. Gather your things, get your instruments, and be in your respective places in 3 minutes or there will be push ups. You can now relax and your time starts now.”

Everyone started moving around the room to begin throwing away their trash from lunch and getting their instruments put together. Dean took one more glance at Castiel and was surprised to see the new drum major looking up at him through his long lashes. It didn’t last long though. Once Castiel noticed that Dean had caught him, he shifted his eyes back down and began making his way to the stand at the front of the band room.

“Come on, Dean-o!” Charlie said cheerfully, smacking his ass as she walked by him. Dean let out a breath that he didn’t even know that he was holding and followed her to the equipment closet to get flags.

Once they got to the gym, Dean and Charlie met the other members of the guard in the circle that they had formed in the center of the room around their instructor, Hannah. Hannah was a lot more laid back than Crowley, but she still expected for the guard to treat every practice like it was a performance. Yet another reason why they were so good.  
“Alright,” Hannah said, clapping her hands together. “It looks as though everyone is here. Well, if you’ve forgotten in the time from auditions until now, my name is Hannah and I am your guard instructor and your tech, meaning that I will be writing all of your work, as well as teaching it to you. I’ve participated in color guard since I was in high school, and then I moved on and did it in college, as well as marching with the Canton Bluecoats until I injured my knee during my 3rd year with them and had to drop out. I picked each and every one of you during auditions because I saw something of the same spark in each of you that I had in me when I was your age. I look forward to working with all of you for the next few months.”

Hannah talked about how excited she was for this marching season and what amazing things she had in store as far as work goes. Dean had heard all of this almost verbatim ever since he joined guard his freshman year. He loved Hannah to death and kind of saw her as the mother figure that he lost all those years ago, but good lord, that woman could talk. All Dean wanted to do was get a flag in his hands. His fingers almost ached for it. It was amazing how relaxed and comfortable you could be with a 6 foot metal pole spinning about your head. 

Once Hannah had finally finished her speech and they had gone over some of the goals that they had for the year, they began doing across-the-floors. Hannah played some upbeat pop song on her iPod over the speakers in the gym. Dean, along with the other 14 people that made up the Lawrence High School Color Guard, chaséd, passéd, and sautéd across the floor for what seemed like hours. Dean had no shoes on so that his feet could get a better grip on the floor but, damn, if the soles of his feet weren’t starting to ache. 

“Hannah, we need water!” One of the new girls, Eve, shouted over the music. 

“Give me one more with the kicks and I’ll let you get water, okay?” Hannah clapped to the beat of the music. “Five, six, seven, eight…”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

They had only done fundamental flag work today. Drop spins, cones, flourishes, getting those things together, all of that fun stuff. Dean guessed it was better than nothing but he was so excited about the probability of learning some show work tomorrow. Their show, “To Infinity and Beyond,” was probably his favorite show they’ve ever done, as far as music goes and he was so excited to see the geniusness that Hannah would be able to come up with for their work.

As the rest of the band entered the gym for team building exercises, Charlie came over and slung an arm around his shoulder. “Whew, that guard block sure was difficult today!” She said sarcastically.

Dean groaned and rolled his eyes. “Ugh, I know right! I can never get the hand placement right for my drop spins! How will I ever go on? Maybe I should just go ahead and quit.” He made a pouty face and crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s too hard, Charlie!”

Charlie snorted. “Oh, Dean, ever the drama queen.” 

They both leaned against the wall as the waited for Crowley to come in and give them instructions. Dean discreetly scanned the crowd for Mr. Blue Eyes but didn’t see anything which was kind of surprising because a person that beautiful shouldn’t be that hard to spot.

Crowley came in a few moments later and instructed them to find someone they didn’t know or had never really talked to before and stand beside them. Charlie groaned and pushed herself off the wall, walking off probably to find herself a freshman. 

“Uh, hello,” Came a weirdly deep voice to Dean’s right. He knew he had never heard that voice before. And, of course, when Dean looked over, Castiel was standing there, looking nervous and out of place.

Dean’s breath caught in his throat but he recovered just in time to not make a complete ass of himself in front of the delicious looking new guy. “Oh, hi. I’m, uh, I’m Dean. Dean Winchester,” Dean said, sticking his hand out for Castiel to shake.

“Castiel Novak,” the other boy said, grabbing Dean’s hand and shaking. 

Dean nodded and smiled. “Yeah, I heard. New drum major. Welcome to Lawrence High: Home of the rat infested bathrooms and moldy lunch meat.”

For a second there, Dean thought he almost saw Castiel crack a smile. He opened his mouth to respond when Crowley’s voice came booming over the speakers.

“Alright, kiddos. Everyone have a partner? Good. Introduce yourselves if you haven’t already.”  
Everyone around them took a second to tell their partner their names but Dean and Castiel just stood there looking at each other and being generally awkward.

“Okay, tell each other your favorite color, now,” Crowley instructed, sounding bored.

“Blue,” Dean said.

“Green,” Castiel replied.

Crowley made all of them state some more random facts about each other before he got into the real part of this exercise. 

“Okay, now, without speaking, communicate with your partner your favorite food.”

Everyone groaned and began miming out their favorite foods. Dean drew a triangle shape in the air with his finger.

“Pizza,” Castiel mouthed, to which Dean shook his head.

Dean acted out picking an apple off a tree, slicing it up, and putting everything in the over. Castiel grinned.

“Pie!” He said, excitedly.

Dean nodded. Castiel wrapped his hands around the air and took an invisible bite. Too easy.

“Burgers?” Dean asked, earning a nod from Castiel.

They waited for the other groups to finish up and then Crowley gave them their next instruction. 

“Without speaking, communicate with your partner something that you’re afraid of.”

Well, shit. Obviously, Dean couldn’t act out his father finding out that he maybe kinda sorta liked boys. So he acted out a spider. Castiel did the same. 

A few silent acting tasks later, the exercise was finished. Crowley explained that it was obviously much easier to communicate with talking but that sometimes we have to find other ways to make our points known. 

And, with that, they were done for the day. Dean’s last first day of band camp was officially over. And, although he was dead tired, he couldn’t wait to come back to school tomorrow if it meant seeing Castiel Novak.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, guys. This is the first time I've written something in AGES. And, if you can't tell by this horrendous first chapter, I'm still a little rusty.
> 
> Lemme give you some background about why I chose to make Dean on color guard as opposed to playing an instrument. It's because I've done color guard for the past 3 years of high school and I don't know a damn thing about music. Most of the stuff involving band camp is kinda based on how we did band camp at my school (stretch block, then fundamentals, then fundamentals as a group, lunch, sectionals, team building, go home) so that's how that's going to be organized. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading this. I'm really going to try not to get lazy with this because I want to write and finish at least one long(ish) fic for once in my life.


End file.
